A Cook County judge on Wednesday denied a request by Northwestern University law school's Center on Wrongful Convictions to seal evidence in a court battle over a decades-old murder in which university journalism students contend the wrong man was convicted.

Circuit Judge Diane Gordon Cannon issued her ruling without comment after hearing brief arguments from prosecutors and an attorney from the Center on Wrongful Convictions, which is representing Anthony McKinney in his bid for a new trial in the 1978 murder of a Harvey security guard.

McKinney's attorneys argued that the public release of nearly a thousand pages of documents the university handed over to prosecutors could deprive McKinney of a fair hearing.

Prosecutors have raised questions about some methods used by the student journalists investigating the McKinney case as well as another murder in which the students believe that prosecutors convicted the wrong man.

An attorney for Northwestern said the university plans to withhold more than 100 e-mails exchanged among students, professor David Protess and private detective Sergio Serritella, arguing that they are subject to laws that protect journalists from revealing private conversations.